The white house, sitting amongst trees in downtown New Albany next to a YMCA, is not an anomaly, as it might appear. And rest assured, the furniture store across the street was not there when the house was built.
In fact, nothing was. That white house, known as the Scribner House, was the first frame house ever constructed in New Albany, and it was built by one of the city’s founders, Joel Scribner. Dating to 1814, it is literally one of the original features of New Albany.
Perhaps even more astonishingly, it was never owned by another family – at least not until it was sold to the Piankeshaw Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution in 1917 to ensure its preservation. The purchase price was $1,500 – or just under $38,000 in today’s money.
Today, it serves as a definitive history of the riverside city, which was officially founded in 1917.
The Building of Scribner House
Scribner House was built by brothers Joel, Nathaniel and Abner, who named the town after their hometown of Albany, New York. They had originally planned to settle near Cincinnati until they arrived to find it was already well populated. They continued west along the Ohio River and came upon a rising settlement called Louisville, sitting on a fall in the river. There, they decided to start their own settlement, and New Albany was born.
The brothers purchased 860 acres on the banks of the river for a price of $8,000. They acquired the land from Colonel John Paul, the American pioneer who founded Madison, Indiana, some 50 miles east along the Ohio River.
The home itself was constructed of the ash, oak, and poplar trees they felled when they were clearing the site to build it. Designed in the New England Federal style, the house is two-and-a-half stories with three bedrooms and a kitchen with a fireplace.
From Wilderness to Downtown
That the Scribners were able to launch a town, let alone just build a house, in what would become New Albany is remarkable. It was literal wilderness at the time, a place where the Piankeshaw tribe had lived, lending to the name of the local DAR chapter which owns the house to this day.
Mary Scribner Davis Collins, a descendent of the city’s founders, described in a 1921 essay the wild setting upon which the house and New Albany were built: “The whole site of the proposed town was covered with a virgin forest of beech, maple, poplar and oak, with a heavy undergrowth of pawpaw, sassafras, spice-wood, green brier, and almost every other kind of shrub incident to a rich soil, so that when the leaves had obtained their full growth in summer it was impossible to see a rod ahead in the woods.”
Today, there are shops, restaurants, businesses, residential homes, a riverwalk, an amphitheater and more. Part of the rise of New Albany around the original white house includes a middle school named after founding brother Nathaniel Scribner.
In the Family
As noted, the house never left the family, and it is still decorated with portraits of its former residents. And thanks to the continuity, in the house also remain a few items that are original to the family, such as an organ and a sewing machine. The home was handed down from family member to family member for a full century until Harriot “Hattie” Scribner.
One portrait depicts Charles Edward Scribner, son of Dr. William Scribner, as a young boy, circa mid-1800s, while another depicts his wife, Harriett Partridge Hale. A portrait of Dr. Scribner, who was the home’s second owner, is in an adjacent room.
Interestingly, also on display in the historic home is a photograph of Spur Filling Station, which existed in the 1930s on the area that is now the Scribner House front lawn. The filling station was demolished decades ago.
Scribner House was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1977, and it is open for tours, from small groups to school children. The house is open by appointment only, except for a few annual events.
Christmas Tea
If you’re interested in visiting Scribner House, a perfect time to do so is for the annual Christmas Open House & Tea event hosted by the Piankeshaw Chapter of the National Society Daughters of the American Revolution. The house is open for tours during the entire event!
Christmas Open House & Tea
1 – 5 p.m.
Sunday, December 7, 2025
The event also includes live parlor music, homemade treats, access to the Scribner House gift shop and various teas. In addition, DAR members dress in period attire, welcoming guests at the front door.
Admission to the Christmas Tea event is free, although donations are appreciated.
